I talked to a lot of players at the Sneak Preview for The Duelist Genesis, and one of the questions that I asked anyone who played in the sealed flights was which card or cards they least wanted to see across the table from them. A few people named Stardust Dragon, Red Dragon Archfiend, or Goyo Guardian, but for most players it wasn’t any of the Synchro monsters themselves that they were afraid of. Rather, most players were fearful of a particular Tuner and a specific equip spell that, when placed on said Tuner, would most likely win the game outright. Based on the information I gathered, a vast majority of readers who played in a sealed flight are now theoretically nodding their heads in agreement at the pronouncement of Krebons and Telekinetic Charging Cell as "the nuts" in Sealed. If you get this combination into play there are precious few answers to it, most of which require either bad play decisions on your part, specific combinations of hard-to-find cards, or both.

One player managed to defeat the combination after his opponent, failing to summon Avenging Knight Parshath since he only had one Light non-Tuner monster on the field, opted not to summon his Stardust Dragon instead or even attack with either of his other monsters. This left his opponent free to flip Dharc the Dark Charmer to steal Krebons and send it to the grave with Dharc and Oyster Meister, to drop Red Dragon Archfiend and begin the beatings. He won with only one card left in his deck after being stalled out by free-Krebons for twelve turns.

This got a lot of players thinking about Krebons as a viable card in constructed, and frankly, it’s a viewpoint I completely agree with. When faced with Krebons, the natural player instinct is to summon a bunch of monsters and attack it as many times as possible to force the player to pay life points. Equip spells are generally frowned upon in constructed environments unless they do something that immediately swings the game, so I doubt that Telekinetic Charging Cell is going to see play outside Witch Doctor of Sparta combo decks.

With that said, I think people are going to be willing to pay the 800 to block the attack of some random Gladiator Beast. If you block all the attacks, the only way that Gladiator Beasts are going to be able to completely overwhelm you is if the deck’s pilot plays Test Tiger offensively instead of as a recovery card, or if he or she has Gladiator Beast Bestiari waiting in hand along with Solemn Judgment, Cold Wave, or both. Most decks have replaced their copies of Gladiator Proving Ground with Cold Wave, so you’re guaranteed that they’ll need to naturally draw into all this stuff, which becomes difficult for your opponent if you’re also using Destructotron to keep the opponent’s back row under control. Since we’re talking about playing Psychic monsters here, it’s only right that we also play six copies of Solemn Judgment. Three are good, right? Therefore having an extra three that require you to tribute a monster instead of paying half your life should be great! You can only achieve this with Psychic monsters, and that alone makes them worth exploring, don’t you think?

Monsters: 19

2 Cyber Dragon
3 Krebons
3 Psychic Commander
2 Mind Master
3 Destructotron
1 Psychic Snail
2 Doctor Cranium
1 Sangan
1 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole
1 Treeborn Frog

Extra Deck: 15

The purpose of this deck is twofold. First, you’ll want to abuse Telekinetic Charging Cell as much as possible with effects like Mind Master, Krebons, and Destructotron. With Mind Master, you can cycle through any number of Psychic monsters in your deck for free, loading your graveyard with all the cards you possibly need to activate Psychic Overload while finishing up with whichever Psychic monster you actually want. Finish with Psychic Snail or Destructotron on the field, and you can Synchro summon with Mind Master to bring out Magical Android. As I discussed above, locking someone down with Krebons and Telekinetic Charging Cell is very good in constructed as well as sealed. In constructed, you’ll keep your opponent from attacking until he or she manages to summon Gladiator Beast Gyzarus. At that point you can either lose Krebons and take back the Charging Cell for 1000 life points, or you can hopefully have Solemn Judgment or Mind Over Matter on the field to outright negate the summon of Gyzarus and put a big hole in the Gladiator Beast player’s field.

If the Gladiator Beast player tries something tricky like blowing up the Charging Cell first so that you can’t get it back, you can just negate the follow-up attack with Krebons, albeit at a cost of 800 life points. In the grand scheme of things, 800 life points just isn’t that much. If you’ll pay 800 for Royal Oppression or Premature Burial, paying 800 for Krebons is no big issue—both keep monsters on the field and out of battle. You’ll just need to be careful about Gladiator Beast War Chariot as it remains to be seen how many people will actually play it.

Perhaps the best trick with Telekinetic Charging Cell is the one that turns your Destructotron into a veritable Harpie’s Feather Duster, albeit one that only hits face-down cards. Sure, it won’t do you a whole lot of good against Messenger of Peace and one or more Wave-Motion Cannon cards, but the top strategies right now don’t usually play anything of the sort, making it mostly irrelevant. Finally, adding Telekinetic Charging Cell to your Psychic Commander allows you to fix the numbers in battle for free with any of your Psychic monsters. Regardless of which one is in battle, you can use Psychic Commander’s effect. It’s especially handy for when you need to beat down Elemental Hero Stratos or Elemental Hero Prisma.

Furthermore, the Commander is a level 3 Tuner, allowing you to make plays with Cyber Dragon to convert it into Stardust Dragon or Thought Ruler Archfiend. Other combinations to be aware of to produce level 8 Synchro monsters include Destructotron or Psychic Snail + Psychic Commander + Doctor Cranium and the much less common (but still valid) Sangan + Neo-Spacian Grand Mole + Krebons. As I’m fairly certain I pointed out last week, it’s extremely important to be aware of all of your viable options for Synchro summons, given that they let you pull off the most damaging attacks with this deck.

The most versatile (and, by extension, most difficult) card to play here has to be Emergency Teleport. As a quick-play spell, you can activate Emergency Teleport nearly any time during the duel to pull any level 3 or lower Psychic monster to the field—at least until the end phase. The main uses that I’m finding for it are to beam down Tuner monsters for quick Synchro summons, transporting Mind Master to the field to get rid of Destructotron when it’s going to explode in the end phase (either by Synchro Summon or tributing it off for something like Krebons or Doctor Cranium), or fetching Mind Master to turn the tide of battle in your favor. You can also use Emergency Teleport as either a bluff or a promise, depending on whether or not you actually have Mind Over Matter down when you want your opponent to not do something big. It’s especially helpful on your opponent’s turn in Cold Wave situations when he or she doesn’t have the Cold Wave/Prisma/Test Tiger combo that makes even the boldest players face-palm. If your opponent uses Cold Wave, chain Emergency Teleport to put Krebons on the field. If at that point your opponent has the combo, oh well, you were doomed from the start. If not, you’ve got a chance to put down Psychic Snail or Psychic Commander during the turn you’re under Cold Wave to take advantage of your opponent’s failed approach.

I’m convinced that it’s possible to build a Psychic deck that can compete on the SJC circuit. This one definitely isn’t it, but some of the ideas here are the basis for something very good. Emergency Teleport is incredibly powerful, and with the right complement of Psychic monsters behind it along with a clever pilot, Teleport is easily a game-winning card. If I had to hazard a guess, I would suspect that the true path to greatness for the Psychics comes by somehow combining them with Counter Fairies to create a Psycho Counter deck that runs six Solemn Judgment cards in addition to other counter traps. That way you get extra draw power from Bountiful Artemis. I don’t know how to do this yet, but if you do, then by all means do it. It’s probably very good. Until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!